Many B2B businesses I speak to are faced with the unsatisfactory choice between:

• Demanding up-front payments at the risk of losing customers at the checkout who can’t or won’t pay in full.

• Offering financing options but then being landed with the task of managing underwriting, risk, and debtor management. 

At Tilta, we work with B2B ecommerce businesses, like PackHelp and IVY OAK, that were facing the same dilemma. We understand how vital it is to offer payment terms in a scalable way that allows you to close more sales without overburdening your finance teams. In this article I’ll explain: 

• How, with the right approach to financing, you can transform payments from a drain on your finance team to an important resource for your sales team.

• How payment technology can help you:

  • Generate sales even before the customer arrives at your checkout.

  • Eliminate credit risk and reduce fraud.

  • Add value, increase loyalty, and reinforce your brand.

  • Remove pressure from your finance teams.

Payments: From financial admin to active sales tool

Traditionally, payments have been seen as a function you plug into your checkout to facilitate transactions. At the backend, it falls to finance teams to manage, reconcile, and report on them.

But payment technology has come a long way, as we’ve witnessed in the B2C world with the likes of Uber, Amazon, and Shopify. Nowadays, successful businesses are seeing payments as a tool for proactively driving sales by:

• Embedding payments seamlessly into the purchase flow so it’s as simple as a couple of clicks.

• Providing the payment methods customers in different markets expect.

• In the case of B2B, offering the payment terms businesses need to manage their cash flow.

These benefits should enhance the customer experience without adding undue pressure to your finance teams. But too often, managing payment terms via invoicing results comes with yet another list of finance admin tasks such as: 

• Issuing an invoice, which requires a separate piece of software.

• Manually collecting and/or chasing payments.

• Credit underwriting via a third party – adding cost and complexity and slowing down sales.

• Credit insurance and factoring, which is not integrated and so becomes yet another manual process.

Given all that, it’s hardly surprising that a full-time equivalent (FTE) can only manage about 1000 transactions a month.

On the other hand, if your payment financing is embedded into your payment function and the whole process is handled by a single provider (like Tilta), you won’t have to do any of that. Instead, you can focus on the benefits that will: 

• Improve your conversions and reduce cart abandonment.

• Proactively stimulate sales.

• Grow loyalty and enhance your brand.

How payment technology can generate more sales and free up your finance team

At Tilta, we work closely with finance and sales teams because our solution impacts both. Here are some of the benefits you can expect:

Add value with credit advances and flexible terms – without the risk

Adding additional value keeps you competitive and ensures your customers stay loyal. Tilta can help set you apart by allowing you to:

Proactively offer credit to your customers

The purchase journey starts long before your customer lands on your checkout page. And, since cash flow is often a blocker, you can accelerate the process by proactively extending credit to customers the moment they log in. For example, you can greet them with the message: “Welcome [customer name]! You have €250,000 pre-approved credit to spend with us today.”

We facilitate risk decisions in seconds, based on multiple global and local data sources, to deliver the best possible decisions and limits. Where available, we leverage your past relationship and resulting activity with the customer to further improve the limit. Of course, limits are always exclusive to you and your sales.

This allows you to confidently offer the maximum possible credit with none of the risk. So your customers can browse and buy knowing they have the spending power to do so.

Quickly assess and approve new customers with zero risk

In the B2C world, extending credit to customers comes at a relatively low risk since the values are typically low (say €100 for a pair of sneakers). But, in the case of B2B, a meaningful credit limit is around €250,000. This is a huge risk to absorb, especially if you have multiple customers spread across several markets - for example, selling to small family-run businesses in Northern Sweden or Southern Italy. Additionally, external underwriting can be slow, and expensive and tends to rely on limited data that doesn’t tell the whole story.

That’s why we have a holistic approach to underwriting. Our technology combines multiple data points to dynamically decide who can and can’t receive credit. If a customer is not deemed eligible (which occurs in about 10% of cases – depending on the market and industry), you can still continue with the sale but request payment upfront. 

We have such faith in our risk decisioning that we will absorb the risk for you. So your customers can enjoy generous payment terms without you having to worry about chasing payment or losing money to fraud.

Let businesses choose when they pay with flexible payment terms

Different industries have different expectations when it comes to payment terms and you want to be able to provide the terms your customers expect. Additionally, you’ll add more value if you’re able to accommodate a customer who’s experiencing a temporary cash flow issue.

With Tilta, you can let your customers choose their payment terms from a pre-set list of options provided at checkout. You decide how much you charge per period. Your customers enjoy more flexibility and you benefit from a new revenue stream.

Strengthen your customer relationships with our white-labeled solution

There are some buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) providers in the market today that also cater to B2B. However, they usually offer a branded solution that intercepts the relationship with your customers. You also run the risk of them diverting customers to deals on other websites.

With Tilta, our service is white-labeled. So the value-add you offer your customers is all yours. We’ll do all the heavy lifting in the background, while you boost your brand by offering a stand-out service.

Free up your finance teams with embedded payments and financing

If you’re accepting and managing invoice payments, you’ll know how arduous it is to manage the processing, underwriting, and debtor management. And, if you need one FTE per 1000 transactions monthly, how many additional people will you need to employ if you want to scale?

With Tilta, the management of payment financing is embedded in the integration. Our technology handles the risk assessment and payment processing and then pays out to you, regardless of whether the customer has paid us or not. This saves your finance team hours, which they can dedicate to more strategic activities. 

Transform payments from a finance task into a sales driver

Offering financing at the checkout is essential if you want to stand out in a crowded marketplace. But it can be a huge drain on your finance team if you manage it yourself.

However, with the right partner, payment terms have the potential to be an important sales tool, adding value, building loyalty, and actively stimulating sales – without putting undue pressure on already overstretched finance teams.